“Have a Grubby day!” is a frequent refrain in Julian Glander’s Boys Go to Jupiter. It’s the catchphrase for Grubster, a Grubhub-esque food-delivery service for which Billy (Jack Corbett) works, but it also feels like a genuine expression of how his life is going. He dropped out of high school and now suffers the indignities of the gig economy. His customers vary in shape and size, all of them existentially dissatisfied. The world around them, however, is fantastic: The film’s version of suburban Florida is a vibrantly colored theme park, rich in attractions and distractions alike. While Glander’s characters may suffer from teenage ennui, the movie’s vivid animation inspires anything but boredom. Boys Go to Jupiter is about finding magic in the mundane, and that’s also the key to what makes it so joyful to look at.
August movie releases tend to be strange outliers: oddball comedies, horror, anything that might not have been able to compete with the Marvels and Jurassic Worlds out there. It’s funny, then, that Boys Go to Jupiter is actually kind of a Christmas movie. Set in the liminal space of that week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, the film follows Billy around as he tries to net $5,000 by the New Year in order to get his life started. His life, however, has already started: He hangs out with his friends, skateboarding and lounging at the beach. He doesn’t need $5,000 to keep that up. He has visions of being rich, but like many who grind nonstop, Billy doesn’t seem to know what he’d do with the money if he ever got it. That doesn’t stop him, however, from following the advice of an online financial guru who goes by Mr. Moolah (Demi Adejuyigbe), with the hopes of amassing his capital.
Glander’s film is a sly anti-capitalist coming-of-age story, where each young character reckons with the part they play (or refuse to play) in the global economy. The movie doesn’t feel distinctly auto-fictional, but the micro-budget nature of the production reinforces that money is not necessary — or even prohibitive — when it comes to having a good time. Glander animated (and self-produced) the film using Blender, a free open-source modeling program that he taught himself to use by referencing YouTube tutorials. The result is eye-catching and hypnotic, funny and bizarre. The film’s lackadaisical pace matches the easygoing rhythms of the dialogue, but it also gives us time to feast on every frame. What’s more anti-capitalist than taking things slow, eyes drifting across the screen? Boys Go to Jupiter captures an adolescent malaise without talking down to its teens — there is no preaching about real jobs, responsibilities, or five-year plans. These characters are going nowhere fast; that’s not such a bad thing.
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To that end, Boys Go to Jupiter is a perfect August film. It is melodic and strange, playing out like a summer day that’s gone on way too long. There are vague conspiratorial undertones involving a powerful local orange juice CEO known as Dr. Dolphin (Janeane Garofalo), but the film is at its best and most pleasurable in its wide shots — deserted beaches, empty pools, mini-golf courses, a giant hot-dog stand. The buildings are tropical and geometric, as though built with toy blocks. The landscapes are bright and colorful; Glander fills each frame with vivid blues, cool greens, romantic pinks, and hazy oranges. The textures are buoyant and goopy. It all might as well be made with Play-Doh, each character and object malleable as though fingers were molding them in real time. Characters melt and fizzle under the heat of the sun. Rippling clouds resemble Styrofoam. Every tableau is rich with detail, both natural and industrial, and set to a score that features synth-y original songs written by Glander and Miya Folick (who also voices Billy’s love interest, Rozebud). It’s a film that feels like wasting time with friends. Glander indulges every tangent and aside, granting these characters space in the frame to be their strangest selves, and he does so all under 90 minutes. How’s that for a bargain?
